GeezerBot

[williamgaylord]

[formerly "GeazerBot]

I'm dusting off a project I've neglected for over a year. I want to rig him up for animation, but need a somewhat simplefied or restricted motion given how he is constructed. His knee and elbow joints need to rotate about a single local axis as they are simple hinge joints. Anybody know how to restrict the movement accordingly? Same goes for the "toe" joints on his feet and most of the finger joints. Oh, yah...he also only swivels around one axis at his waist as well. All the other joints are ball and socket joints, so they can have a very wide freedom of movement accordingly.

 

http://wjgaylord.brinkster.net/GeazerBot_f-b.jpg

 

This "poses" (pardon the pun) a challenge if you want to use a labor saver like The Setup Machine. There is no spine to speak of, which is the main challenge. This may be an opportunity to learn more about such rigs.

 

I do want to be able to smoothly vary between forward and reverse kinematics in the arms and I want the typical null targets that make animating the legs easier, too. Any suggestions? I have Raf Anzovin's "Dem Bones" tutorials, which are very helpful, but take a bit of time to digest. I have used both the Anzovin TSM rig and the AM 2001 rig. Any updated tutorials on constraint setups for such rigs?

 

Bill Gaylord

[williamgaylord]

Dang it! I misspelled GeezerBot on the title. (That's interesting...the spell checker didn't catch that one! ) Oh, well.

 

Here is a quick doodle I did during a break from working the Dragon Con art show in Atlanta. This is an idea I had for the GeezerBot's companion, which I plan to model soon.

 

http://wjgaylord.brinkster.net/RoboPup.jpg

 

He's basically a robochihuahua.

 

Bill Gaylord

Edited September 17 by robcat2075
missing image restored

[jamagica]

That model is awesome? Where did you start?

[mark]

That's great! How do you create the material though?

[williamgaylord]

I built him from scratch. I use the DarkSim Simbiont plugin for AM to get the corroded copper look. It is a free plugin you can download from the DarkSim Web site: http://www.darksim.com/ . There are a number of free "darktrees" you can download from the site as well, including a number of metalic textures. These textures are procedural and are calculated in volume space and mapped onto the model surface as it intersects the space...they are a bit computationally intensive, but they result in some very interesting textures. They also sometimes have aliasing issues on long views, but for relatively close-up scenes they are fabulous! Pretty clever folks at Darkling Simulations!

 

Bill Gaylord

[hypnomike]

Looks great Bill!

 

If you're having trouble with what appears from your description to be a mechanical type movement I'd suggest you contact ddustin , if he does not respond to this thread.

 

He specializes in mechanical models.

 

Hope this helps.

[-TC-]

Great model Bill, and nice texturing too.

Thanks for the link to the DarkSim site, i just downloaded the plug-in and the shaders. I think they will come in very useful.

[williamgaylord]

Does anyone know how to make a mesh render as only lines, with no patches showing? Below are the ears of the robochihuahua, which I want to appear as though they were wire mesh screens. Anybody know how to fix this? (I've changed the color and contrast to make the details show up better.)

 

http://wjgaylord.brinkster.net/Ears.jpg

 

Bill Gaylord

Edited September 17 by robcat2075
missing image restored

[Biotron2000]

I think you could insert more control points so the patches don't render, then select the entire mesh and set it to "Render as Lines." You can set line thickness and color but not reflections or specularity (at least in v9.5).

[jamagica]

Why do that when you can render it as lines and set the group's transparency at 100? Or would that just make the lines transparent too?

[williamgaylord]

There is only one obvious color setting when you activate "render-as-line"--at least that I've been able to find. There has got to be a way to do this, though!

 

May have to just add some extra control points as Biotron2000 suggested.

 

Thanks for the suggestions.

 

Bill Gaylord

[Ganthofer]

Bill,

 

This technique gives you just the lines, in any color you want. BUT , it uses transparency and that's set on the Model level (not on the group level) so you would have to attach the ear model to the rest of the model in the Chor and that will take some funky constraints (although I have some ideas on that - constrain a bone in the ear to a dummy ear bone in the model to orient like and translate to. move the dummy ear bone and the ear should follow). Depends on how animated the ears will be.

 

give this a try. Group the ears and set the color (also you can set ambience, Line width and glow) and render as lines. in the model, set the transparency to 99.

 

The only other way to get the mesh ear look (that I can think of) would be a transparency map and applied to the ears.

[williamgaylord]

Thanks for the info! I'll try that shortly. Here is the RoboChihuahua as he stands so far. A few refinements left to go, but this is his essential form. Any suggestions for improvements will be appreciated.

 

http://wjgaylord.brinkster.net/RoboChihuahua02.jpg

 

Bill Gaylord

Edited September 17 by robcat2075
missing image restored

[ddustin]

William,

 

I'll post something in a bit, have a meeting to go to.

 

Need to show off some animation wich includes robots.

 

What a coincidence?

 

 

BRB

 

 

d

[Biotron2000]

Looks great, Bill - can't wait to see him in action!

I'd like to see it against a lighter background. Also, is the abdominal connector accordian-ed? Its hard to tell as it's so dark.

As for the ears, I think a tranparency map might work as well. I tried to do it yesterday but could not get it to work (still learning about alpha channels, etc.). I also tried adding control points to a similar-looking ear mesh model. That worked, but the extra CP's distorted the mesh. I don't know if you can add a CP to a spline that stays in line with the rest of the spline.

[hypnomike]

Nice one Bill!

 

I like the continuity of the design between the two different models, you've really stamped your own style on them.

 

Keep posting.

[ddustin]

William,

 

The way I limit how my mechanical devices move is to use pose sliders.

 

That way I can control the exact range of motion, by rotating the bone in only one direction.

 

In the animation I use the pose sliders to move the robot into position, then open the timeline and make sure all the motions use liner interpolation, to keep them discreet as opposed to creature like motions.

 

You need to choose the view in the timeline by seleting the far left button that looks like a line graph. Left click on one of the CP's, then right click (PC) on the line and select interpolation method, then linear.

 

You can leave some of the curved lines alone if you want a single joint to have some hysterisis (joint over shoot), which may look cool if it's on a single joint, like a weak leg.

 

Here's a screen shot of one of my 6 axis robots with the pose sliders and timeline showing.

 

Hope this helps.

 

d

[williamgaylord]

Yes. His waist and neck are "accordioned", like in the sketch. Tonight I may put him in a better context for showing him off.

 

Adding control points to the ear mesh will likely work. It's likely to be very labor intensive though, involving tweaking a lot of gammas to get the curves right. I may just skip trying to make it a mesh...you wouldn't use a mesh anyway if his ears are acoustic. Oh...maybe I could just break some of the intersections? That might work, and might not involve as much tweaking. Even if that works I may not use it, since the render-as-lines seems to look more like ribbon than wire.

 

I think the Robochihuahua will be lots of fun to animate. He'll be the source of most of the action. (I plan to make him "anatomically" correct, so he can do things you would expect the average dog to do... ). It's part of the script I have worked out so far for these two.

 

Bill Gaylord

[modernhorse]

Love it. Good to see the geez again. And I'm really diggin that dog. Something about him doesn't look chihauha to me, maybe the head is too small in proportion to the body? Great looking models William!

 

Doug

[hypnomike]

I've come up with an idea to show the ears as a mesh Bill.

 

Could you use a photo of a mesh as a decal?

 

I've not used decals yet (next exercise) but it seems a good idea in theory.

[ddustin]

William,

I see you were in Atlanta recently.

 

Do you work there or were you just traveling? (I work in Atlanta).

 

Also, do you use the TSM with v 11?. I bought it for v 10 but haven't tried it on v 11.

 

Thanks,

 

d

[hypnomike]

Also, do you use the TSM with v 11?. I bought it for v 10 but haven't tried it on v 11.

They now have setup machine 2 for version 11.

 

You can get it cheaper as an existing user or get a free upgrade if you bought version 1 after 1st April 2004.

[williamgaylord]

Something about him doesn't look chihauha to me, maybe the head is too small in proportion to the body?

 

I'm not sure either. I think the legs might need to be shorter and a tad thicker, and the chest may be a bit large. The head might need to be a little larger compared to the body. Another thing might be the eyes. Chihuahuas tend to have round somewhat bulging eyes. But he is a robochihuahua after all--that involves some compromises. Some tweaks will improve the look, though.

 

I see you were in Atlanta recently. Do you work there or were you just traveling? (I work in Atlanta).Also, do you use the TSM with v 11?. I bought it for v 10 but haven't tried it on v 11.

 

I live in Stone Mountain, GA and work in Atlanta.

 

I have not obtained TSM 2 to use with AM version 11.0 yet, but plan to soon.

 

Bill Gaylord

[williamgaylord]

Modified the Robochihuahua to look more like a Chihuahua. Reduced the chest size, made his snout smaller, head larger, and eyes smaller, lower and more spread apart to get a more accurate Chihuahua look. Let me know what you think.

 

http://wjgaylord.brinkster.net/RoboChihuahua03.jpghttp://wjgaylord.brinkster.net/Robochihuahua01.jpg

Bill Gaylord

Edited September 17 by robcat2075
missing image restored

[williamgaylord]

Here is a picture of the two characters together:

 

http://wjgaylord.brinkster.net/BotandChi.jpg

 

Have more refinements to do to the Robochihuahua.

 

Bill Gaylord

Edited September 17 by robcat2075
missing image restored

[starwarsguy]

I love that Chihuahua

[hypnomike]

Modified the Robochihuahua to look more like a Chihuahua. Reduced the chest size, made his snout smaller, head larger, and eyes smaller, lower and more spread apart to get a more accurate Chihuahua look. Let me know what you think.

Simple changes have made an amazing difference. It's really coming to life now.

[modernhorse]

William - great changes. Supah smooth doggie. And its nice to see the Geez in that environment. I was wondering if the two projects were related in some way.

 

Doug

[Biotron2000]

Looks great, I like the way you handled the ears.

 

Yo quiero Texaco Bell!

[williamgaylord]

I was wondering if the two projects were related in some way.

 

Actually the tree animation project the brownstone comes from is a separate project. It was just a handy backdrop to use for a more interesting context.

 

Looks great, I like the way you handled the ears.

 

Yah, I think having the patches render with the mesh lines actually looks better than having just a mesh would have looked.

 

Now I have to figure out how best to rig these guys so I can get them moving around! Especially the little guy!

 

I plan to make the Robochihuahua somewhat "anatomically correct", as he will be doing distinctly "doggy" things according to the script. I'll try to keep things somewhat subtle so as not to spoil his cuteness.

 

Bill Gaylord

[williamgaylord]

OK...made the little guy a bit more "anatomically correct". He is a dog after all and will be doing typically doggy things during the script.

 

http://wjgaylord.brinkster.net/RoboChihuahua04.jpghttp://wjgaylord.brinkster.net/RoboChihuahua05.jpg

 

Bill Gaylord

Edited September 17 by robcat2075
missing image restored

[Hutch]

Lol, I gotta see what sort of doggy things he is going to be doing.

[williamgaylord]

OK. Now it's time to rig up these guys for animation...

 

The way I limit how my mechanical devices move is to use pose sliders.

 

Have you tried this with a mix of more traditional manipulation? Oddly enough, I don't want mechanical looking (linear) motion so much as just a limitation of joint movement. I want to be able to pose these guys for the most part like I would characters of a more organic ilk. I'll experiment with this technique, though. It might do the trick.

 

Otherwise, does anybody know how to restrict the rotation of one bone relative to another to a single local axis without using a pose slider? Especially in the case of arms, I would like the freedom to manipulate them using both forward and reverse kinematics, without "breaking" the hinge nature of the joints.

 

Thanks,

Bill Gaylord

[luckbat]

You want Euler Limits.

[williamgaylord]

Euler, Euler, he's our man! Yes! Euler constraints do exactly what I wanted. Thanks, Luckbat.

 

Are there some simple techniques for precision alignment of bones? Similar to using the "scale" function to align control points along a plane by setting the scale perpendicular to the plane to zero percent? Can you set the rotation of a bone in both global and local coordinates? Guess I should do a bit of homework and experimantation.

 

Bill Gaylord

[williamgaylord]

Yes, indeed the Euler constraint works! Here is a simple, unrefined animation of the elbow and wrist joints in action:

 

Arm Joint Test

 

Now I'll just have to get down to business figuring out the rest.

 

Thanks again, Luckbat.

 

Bill Gaylord

[entity]

Looking good! It looks like I would expect a robot arm to move. The textures are just perfect for him, IMO. Good luck on rigging the rest of him.

[luckbat]

You're welcome, William!

 

Now that you have the Euler Limits set, you can optionally configure the manipulator properties of the corresponding bones in your choreography's model shortcut to display the X-rotation manipulator whenever you select the bone. Depending on how you like to work, it could make posing those bones easier, or at least more visual.

 

Check out the image below and give it a shot...

[robcat2075]

On 10/23/2004 at 7:29 PM, williamgaylord said:

Dang it! I misspelled GeezerBot on the title. (That's interesting...the spell checker didn't catch that one! ) Oh, well.

 

Fixed, William... wherever you are!